Isser Harel

Isser Harel was born in 1912 in Vitebsk

Isser Harel was born Isser Halperin in 1912 in Vitebsk, in the Russian Empire, the fourth child of a wealthy Jewish family. His father was a rabbi, and the family owned a vinegar factory. The Soviet regime seized their property, and in 1922 the family moved to Daugavpils in Latvia.

In Daugavpils he finished elementary school and began high school. He joined a Zionist youth movement and went to agricultural training. In 1930 he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine with forged papers.

He joined the group that founded Kibbutz Shfayim and married Rivka there. In 1935 the couple brought their families to Palestine, and later they moved to Herzliya, where he worked as an irrigation contractor.

In 1942 he volunteered for the Haganah and worked in its intelligence service, the Shai. From 1944 he served at Shai headquarters in Tel Aviv, heading the department for internal security. In 1947 he became commander of the Shai's Tel Aviv District.

When the state was founded he became head of the Shin Bet and built it from the start. He led the Mossad from 1952 to 1963 and oversaw the capture of Adolf Eichmann. He was a Knesset member from 1969 to 1974 and died in 2003.